ed labels; that's even worse. Once in a while I get something with a
label pasted on it, usually on the stock, and after I get it off, there's
a job getting the wood under it rubbed up to the same color as the rest
of the stock."

"Yes. I picked up a lovely little rifled flintlock pistol, once," Rand
said. "American; full-length curly-maple stock; really a Kentucky rifle
in pistol form. Whoever had owned it before me had pasted a slip of paper
on the underside of the stock, between the trigger-guard and the lower
ramrod thimble, with a lot of crap, mostly erroneous, typed on it. It
took me six months to remove the last traces of where that thing had been
stuck on."

"What do you collect, or don't you specialize?"

"Pistols; I try to get the best possible specimens of the most important
types, special emphasis on British arms after 1700 and American arms
after 1800. What I'm interested in is the evolution of the pistol. I have
a couple of wheel locks, to start with, and three miguelet-locks and an
Italian snaphaunce. Then I have a few early flintlocks, and a number of
mid-eighteenth-century types, and some late flintlocks and percussion
types. And about twenty Colts, and so on through percussion revolvers and
early cartridge types to some modern arms, including a few World War II
arms."

"I see; about the same idea Lane Fleming had," Pierre said. "I collect
personal combat-arms, firearms and edge-weapons. Arms that either
influenced fighting techniques, or were developed to meet special combat
conditions. From what you say, you're mainly interested in the way
firearms were designed and made; I'm interested in the conditions under
which they were used. And Adam Trehearne, who'll be here shortly,
collects pistols and a few long-arms in wheel lock, proto-flintlock and
early flintlock, to 1700. And Philip Cabot collects U.S. Martials,
flintlock to automatic, and also enemy and Allied Army weapons from all
our wars. And Colin MacBride collects nothing but Colts. Odd how a Scot,
who's only been in this country twenty years, should become interested
in so distinctively American a type."

"And I collect anything I can sell at a profit, from Chinese matchlocks
to tommy-guns," Karen Lawrence interjected, coming into the room with Dot
Gresham.

Pierre grinned. "Karen is practically a unique specimen herself; the only
general-antique dealer I've ever seen who doesn't hate the sight of a
gun-collector."

"That's only because